Conversation with Kim Scott 2022 recession in 2008

00:01 Hi, how are you?

00:03 Great, how are you?

00:04 Oh, great. So give me a little background on yourself, where you're from, where what's your whole Give me your life story a little bit.

00:15 A synopsis of my life story. My name is Kim Scott. I grew up. I was born and raised in Iowa. I grew up in a small town, Nashville, Iowa. It's a town of about 1500 people. My parents I grew up on a farm. So I was a farm girl until my parents ended up moving to town when I was an adult, a young adult. So my parents were married. They were high school sweethearts. I brothers and a sister and we also this area and the university of college. I went and played softball there. I played I took a couple years there and then went overseas New Zealand and played basketball and back and I finished my college after that I worked in logistics for a little Cedar Rapids and then I knew I wanted to end up on the east coast so I moved to New York City and I lived in New York City about five years doing restaurants and management of restaurants. And then my dad so moved back to Iowa and I bought a restaurant with and for about nine years and then I went different way of manufacturer and that for about 30 years and I we are the largest distributor of energy products.

02:09 Thank you. That's your whole life Perfect. So today we're going to talk about the recession, the 2008 recession and your life through that. Going into 2008, did you think it was going to be a rough year? Did you know anything about the market at the time?

02:29 No, not at all really. I was pregnant with my fourth child so I had a like a six year old, five year old, a three year old, a newborn the end of 2008. I didn't really do much with the stock market except through my that I worked for. I've always just done their 401k. I've been a big investor in the company that I work for and then I let the financial marketing group invest the rest of my money. So no, I did not know that there was really anything going on. I feel that I was being a parent and a wife and working mother also being from a small rural area, you're kind of sheltered from that because you don't see as much of the recession in large factory jobs and large layoffs and things.

03:32 So yeah. What did your daily life look at at the time and was it any different due to the recession?

03:41 No, there really nothing different than I did. I like I said I was a manufacturing a food company and it was For Heinz, which is one of the largest food manufacturers in the world and you know at the time money to buy large cars or houses or things. They still did the small things. So they still went out for dinner, took you know, bought things at the grocery store, maybe cooked at home. But that was entertainment. So the food industry did take a hit. Well in that time did you know I bonus I sold well. Clients were big so that wasn't an issue for me at all. So I don't think I didn't really know the recession. I worked hard. It was always. It was hard to pay the bills.

04:48 It was hard to pay the bills.

04:50 Yeah just I was a single income family. My husband had lost his right prior 2008 as he worked for Anderson Windows and as the construction started to dive down gave it to two networks and so he was not. So he did get a nice Jenny did receive unemployment. The unemployment really they added to it and so he was able for a longer period of time.

05:36 Good, good. How did what work did you do like for the company of Heinz?

05:44 I was a food service sales rep that I sold to distribute. I sold to. I sold the distributors to stock my products. So ketchup, mustard, Heinz 57. We also did a lot of protein soups. I sold it to distributors and they sold it to their sold it to colleges, universities, nursing home. Any 85 people selling my work with them to promote my how to cook with it.

06:22 And were you worried about losing your job at all?

06:26 No, not at all. My numbers were good. Business was booming with what I was doing it was, it was good like it was like I said I bonus I was probably one of my larger bonuses during that time 2008.

06:46 And did you like your job at the time?

06:48 Absolutely loved my job. It was fun, it was creative. I got to meet people. I got to travel outside of our small rural home and I would get to go into larger city the food industry there. I cover about 11 states a lot in Iowa but I went in dipped into 10 other states so traveled to work with those basically in those other states university like University of Wisconsin. That was one of my large accounts. So I would go to Madison. I went to Des Moines a lot. So I liked my job. It was fun.

07:30 Can you tell me about the most important people in your life at the time?

07:35 Absolutely. My husband and I were not. He was not working. Things are hard in my marriage. My mother and my sister helped a lot raise my kids. They helped make sure that things were done around taken care of. When I went to work. I worked A lot. I liked my job, I worked a lot and I successfully support our family on one. So I would work and my husband would leave a lot of times when I first got home and he would just leave for the day, the evening, because he had all day. He would stay at home. He lost his job.

08:29 Yeah. And can you tell me, did you see others struggling like your, your friends, any anything, your family members, anyone else struggling due to the recession?

08:42 Not really. I saw it in far as just by my husband losing his job. But like again I said we are a small rural town and the factories, they didn't lay off the ones that were there. They kept their people, they didn't hire anymore. And there was not like business was booming, but business was status quo. We have a lot of farmers and so the farmers took a little bit of a hit. Also my sister, brother in law had made a large investment and that did not go well. But they just struggled through and were able to invest in something else and that helped them get through it.

09:30 Yeah. Did you have any personal obstacles in your life at the time?

09:36 Oh my gosh, yes. Like I said, my husband's. My marriage was not good. We had separated maybe once or twice during that time before we actually separated for good. But it was hard because he was not working. I was a sole provider to our income and I worked hard, yet we were working. And so as soon as I walked in the house, he would leave the house and I just kept thinking things would get better because I would work harder and things would. He would. I thought he could go out and job even if it was just a menial job, I thought that it would be able to help support our family. He did not. He actually turned to drinking and that was a little. That was really hard on when my mom and my sister really stepped in and helped me and supported me. Really strong support system in our town, in our area. I keep in touch with a lot of people, my work very supportive. So I struggled in that way just in, you know, I was also a mom with four kids under the age of six and so that's really hard. And then you put the tribulation of a rocky marriage, money issues, just because it was not a dual income family. And at that time we needed, we needed two incomes, yet we didn't. It's not like we were starving buy groceries. It's not like I couldn't clothe my children or give them, but it was definitely paycheck to paycheck at the.

11:15 Yeah. How are you feeling? Like just were. You were you worried about your future or not at all?

11:28 Yes, not at all. You know, I. But that's my personality. I just feel like if you keep grinding, it's all worked out and you work hard and you keep going and play away. I was worried about the future of what was going to happen if my husband and I divorced and what was going to happen as a single mom. But I was kind of a single mom anyway. It was just the whole thought of if we divorced, you know, if my kids had to go with him for the weekend and stuff like that, I struggled with. But I also felt that things would possibly turn around in my marriage. I thought that things would get better, you know, if I kept working harder and if he would see how much we had and how much, you know, the kids could be more important and could just happen, that things would turn around and for financially and, you know, everything. So I didn't worry about it in a way that I didn't think it would ever get better. I just worried just like a normal person on a regular basis and get worried about life in general when you are young mother and a young married couple.

12:45 Yeah. So did you have. Can you tell me about your religion, religious beliefs at the time? Like what. What was going on in your faith life?

12:58 You know, I really. Faith was extremely important to me at that time. It helped ground. Ground me. I think people kind of go through a phase that they kind of go away from during like college or they're young life. But once you are married and you. I knew that I wanted my kids to have a strong Christian base. So I knew by doing, by going to church that was going to give them a strong base as young people and I needed it. Church was a very big support system. It was a church up in the pastors at the time I connected with. I just. And their sermons, their sermons meant something to me. Felt that I was getting something from church and it was a place that I could go that I felt at peace.

13:53 Relationships besides your husband, were they holding up good? Like everything was. Nothing was stressful, Money, nothing.

14:01 People were. I think people were more stressed and worried about me and my life and my marriage than I was. I'm pretty confident that I always know I'm going to be okay. I think people were watching my marriage crumble around me, around my kids. And I think it was really hard for people to watch. So if people could chip in and help. Not chip in financially, but just jump in and help support or help do something or help have fun with my family or my Kids or whatever they really did financially. Like I said, it was paycheck to pay and that's how we live because that's what, you know, we couldn't afford the best of everything. But we had things and we had good food and we had nice clothes and we had a decent house. Our cars kind of sucked. We didn't have nice cars.

14:59 Were you worried about your kids having young children during this time period?

15:06 About what the economy would do to them for their future?

15:10 Yeah, sure. Or just worried about them existing in a time where your finances weren't entirely shored up?

15:18 No, no, not at all. Because you know what? I had my face, I had money to pay the bills to. I mean, we weren't desolate. There was a lot of love in our family. There was a lot of fun and laughter in that way. And if I didn't own home, I could go to my sisters or I could go to my mom's or we could go to friends house. If things were stressful at my house with my husband, then we just always there wasn't, wasn't that it wasn't destined, was full of love and laughter and that was okay to get us through.

16:02 Did you ever think about getting a divorce during these couple years?

16:06 Yes, very much so. That was kind of the brink of. When my husband lost his job, things just spiraled downhill from there. He started drinking more. He was disengaged from family life, he was disengaged from the church. He truly stepped away from us and drank more.

16:32 Do you have any important lessons you'd like to share before we end this interview? Important lessons from these times?

16:40 Yeah, I would say. I think if I look back at those times, I feel like I was a very strong and independent, confident woman in my work life and in my parenthood. I felt like I was a good parent. I felt like I kind of lost myself in my husband's demise because I felt like I was trying to help him so much that I kind of lost myself. And I didn't stand up for myself and my family knowing that I kept thinking he was going to get better and things were going to get better. So my advice would be lose yourself in someone else. You can't save someone, you can't change them. They have to want to do that. So once you make that decision, everything seems better in life in general because you make better decisions and better.

17:39 Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think we're good. I think we covered most of the questions that I was going for better the first time you did do better the first time. Sorry. It was good. It was good. It was good.

17:53 I mean, this was fine, but I felt like I did a lot better now. I just felt like he's already heard all this. I don't really want to repeat myself. So I was trying to come up with some other stuff, and I'm like, yeah, well, it's the same answers.

18:04 Yeah, well, anyways, there we go.